Happy 31 days of Halloween!
This year, we’re celebrating with a different movie pick each day that made me audibly gasp, “WHAT THE FUCK?!“
On this, the 4th day of Halloween, I’m dropping the claw down into my basket filled with WTF moments and…drumroll, please…
Brain Damage it is! We’re traveling back in time to the year 1988 into the mind of Frank Henenlotter.
Call it a B film, call it an exploitation film; it’s definitely bizarre and, well, original. Brain Damage stars Rick Hearst as Brian and John Zacherle as the voice of Aylmer. Aylmer is a veiny centuries-old phallic-shaped parasite that attaches itself to Brian’s brainstem. It then injects him with his blue juice. I need many sentences to describe this, but I’ll keep it brief. This dick-shaped monster finds a host to inject with its hallucinogenic fluid, causing said host to enter a state of euphoria. There you go.
Brian quickly becomes addicted to this state and, while under its influence, serves as Aylmer’s guide into the world to find food which happens to be brains. The movie is trippy. The animation and special effects are delightful. Aylmer is grotesque and funny. I couldn’t turn away.
If the description of this movie isn’t “What the fuck?” enough for you, well, it does get better. Or is it worse? I’m not sure how it’s even possible that Brian is walking around with a third arm without anyone noticing or that he’s so freakin’ high for much of the movie. And oh no, at one point, he finds a woman to have sex with, and well, I shudder to say, it goes there. Aylmer does a peek-a-boo from Brian’s zipper, and you get a “What the fuck?!” to check off the list of shit you never wanted to see.
I spent a few months after I first saw this movie trying to trick other people into watching it. If I saw it, someone else should join me. I’m mean. But it made me laugh. A lot. So check it out so we can all WTF this movie together.
